Affinity
by Siler's Wench
Summary: When the ring box snaps shut, two hearts break. SJ with a hint o' Pete.
1. Sam

She knows the sound her heart makes as it breaks.

After everything she's seen, everything she's done, she is surprised that it was that sound that tipped her over the edge into a spiraling panic and feelings of utter despair and desolation. She'd expected it to be different. Maybe the hollow clang of a metal baking tray crashing to the ground, cookies rolling away as her Mom leaves her forever. Maybe the gunfire deafening in its intensity as she fires on the enemy, extinguishing lives. She even wondered if it was the happy sound of children laughing as her biological clock started ticking unexpectedly over the last year…then she remembers that there is someone in her life who lives for a child's laugh even as he mourns for a laugh lost, and his heartbreak must be vastly superior to her own.

No, when it comes to the moment, the moment that everything she had hoped and dreamed for ceased to exist and her future was changed for the worse, there was only one sound.

How fitting that it was that snap of the hastily closed black velvet box, which signified her betrayal to the man to whom she owed everything, it was that snap that told her he wasn't going to fight for her…that snap which finally broke her.

Flinching, she knows what her answer will be now…


	2. Jack

The two most unbearable sounds he'd ever heard fired in rapid succession, waking him from his latest waking nightmare.

CRACK

(Charlie)

SNAP

(Sam)

Two sounds, both signifying key moments in his life. Moments when hope and happiness made way for doubts and despair.

Jack was lost in a dark world of contemplation and regrets. A place into which he had once slipped out of reach from those he loved - to protect himself from the inevitable heart wrenching agony of loss - only to be pulled back by the earnest expression of a young man determined to fight aliens, academia and allergies for his love of life past and present. O'Neill had battled a lifetime of demons to escape from the darkness and it had served him well, keeping him busy as he became a new man who saved the world and went fishing on weekends if the Simpson's wasn't on. He buried the past deeply at the back of his mind and put on the façade of having moved on.

The tactic worked well.

Until bright blue eyes reminded him how it felt to be complete once more, how to live and laugh and love…in his own oh so slightly repressed way.

His warped sense of humor mocked him, laughing at his weakness which threatened to ruin him when she started to hum one day. Her happiness hurt him…how screwed up was that?

He had thought that he had the affinity he felt for her under his control, until one day she showed him that the subordinate had the control in this command structure.

She hadn't said no...

And just like that, his every little hope for the future…snapped shut in a cold black box…again.


	3. Daniel

Carter.

Sir.

Eight years of 'friendship' and they address each other with defense mechanisms.

It doesn't take an archaeologist to figure out what they're doing, running from each other, the depth of their devotion leaving them terrified and vulnerable. The irony being that by running they are left with what they fear. They are alone. They cling to their shield of excuses, denying their feelings and abandoning them in an observation room on level 27. Maybe they believe that denial will hurt less than failure, but in reality it's just a slower form of torture…a long drawn out torment upon their souls.

He hates clichés, yet is overly familiar with the age old concepts of heartache and soul mate. He gets to see her every day as they save the world together and yet he has to wait until he is on his death bed to hear her call him by his first name. Every cloud has a silver lining. The thought forms laughingly in his mind as his eyes speak to her in an ancient language.

Months pass by and we watch as they continue to deny and appear to move on, regardless of the cost. Changes occur rapidly, General O'Neill takes charge as Samantha starts leaving for Denver during down time.

We agree it won't last.

Something snaps.

No one is quite sure what why when, but the next thing we know she is about to become the future Mrs. Samantha Shanahan nee Carter and her eyes are twinkling with fake hope.

We smile and congratulate and watch him out of the corner of our eye as he works furiously to maintain that mask of professionalism.

To Jack there is no deeper betrayal than to watch her leave, as she goes to her fiance...as he sits drowning his sorrows with beer after beer, doing his best to avoid thinking about her…fraternizing with the enemy.

Teal'c and I agree it won't last.

We are rarely wrong twice.

* * *

A/N: Hope you liked this, my little foray into slightly angstier territory! I always thought the best thing about this episode was THAT sound. Symbolic above all else. 


End file.
